There are many processes that have been developed for converting hydrocarbon streams to more useful products. Many of these processes involve the use of catalysts, and many of the catalytic processes are continuously operated. The continuous operation of a catalytic process can involve a fluidized bed reactor, and a regenerator. The catalyst is used in the reactor, and is continuously drawn off as spent catalyst and passed to a regenerator. The regenerator regenerates the spent catalyst and recycles the catalyst back to the reactor.
One common process, as an example, is fluid catalytic cracking. The process is a conversion process to convert heavy hydrocarbons into lighter hydrocarbons. The reaction occurs through contact between the hydrocarbon stream of heavy hydrocarbons with catalyst particles. The particles eventually lose their activity, and need to be regenerated. The basic components of such a process includes a reactor, a catalyst stripper and a regenerator. The reaction takes place in the reactor, where the catalyst is eventually deactivated through the accumulation of coke on the catalyst particles. The catalyst is carried out of the reactor, where residual hydrocarbons are stripped from the catalyst, and the catalyst is passed to the regenerator, where the coke is burned off, and the catalyst is regenerated.
However, some processes using this basic structure may require additional steps to maintain the long term viability of the continuous process.